With the gradual transition of medical surgery from the conventional process of making a long incision in the patient's body for performing a surgery to the next generation of surgery, i.e. minimal invasive surgery (MIS), continuous research is going on to develop and integrate robotic instruments in a system which can be used for MIS purposes. Such integration can help a surgeon to perform a surgery in an error-free manner, and at the same time to work in a realistic environment that gives the surgeon a feel of conventional surgery.
MIS is performed by making small incisions, in the range of 1-3 cm, in the patient's body and using pencil-sized instruments for the surgery. Most of the available robotic instruments used for MIS include one or more straight, elongated shafts, hereinafter referred to as robotic arms, which enter into the patient's body through the small incisions. The robotic arms can carry imaging equipment, such as a camera, as well as pencil-sized surgical instruments, such as forceps and scissors. The pencil-sized surgical instruments are also known as the end effectors. Further, the robotic arms are controlled from a robotic console which includes a robotic hand controller. The robotic hand controller receives input from the surgeon and in turn controls the motion of the robotic arm.
In the present state of the art, the robotic console does not include a haptic interface coupled with the robotic hand controller to provide force feedback to the surgeon. The human wrist is capable of three degrees of freedom, whereas the robotic arms provide more than four degrees of freedom at the site of surgery. The robotic hand controller could potentially command action and receive force feedback from the robotic arms. However, in the existing systems the force feedback is not received in any of the available degrees of freedom. Due to the absence of force feedback, the surgeon is forced to rely solely on the visual feedback received through the robotic console monitors. As a result, the surgeon does not get a real feel of conventional surgery.
Further, as the surgeon needs to perform various actions such as grasping and cutting of tissue during the surgery, the absence of force feedback makes it difficult to gauge the pressure being applied at the surgery site and hence, makes it difficult to conduct the surgery safely. Moreover, the time required for the surgery increases. Additionally, this poses a problem for novice and trainee surgeons as they might not be able to translate the visual feedback into optimum pressure, thereby leading to complications or serious injury. Furthermore, the time a surgeon spends in order to get trained on the MIS system increases significantly.
Adding to the above, the entire control of articulating and navigating the robotic arms, and hence the end effectors, rests in the hands of the surgeon operating on the robotic console. However, because of the excessive dependence on visual feedback and the virtual environment of MIS, a lot of inconvenience is caused to the surgeon leading to fatigue which hampers the efficiency of the surgeon.